Joseph H. Peterson, © 1995, 2003.
| | Notes: |
|
American author Howard P. Lovecraft was known for featuring sinister ancient
texts in his horror fiction. His biographers have documented some of his
texts as genuine, such as Borelli's
De Motu Animalium and
Johann Trithemius' Polygraphia, (Oppenheim, 1518).
Lovecraft apparently was familiar with some of the texts only through
secondary sources. Such is thought to be the case with
Raufft's De Masticatione mortuorum in tumulis which Lovecraft
almost certainly learned about through Calmet's Dissertation upon the
Apparitions of Angels, Daemons, and Ghosts, ... (London, 1759).1
Still other texts mentioned in his stories
are generally regarded as Lovecraft's own inventions.
Many of his stories draw on a common 'mythos' which he associated with
the prototypical evil book, the Necronomicon. However, it is not entirely
clear whether he was drawing on original source material, secondary sources,
or his own imagination for this mythos.
|
1. See William Scott Home, 'The Lovecraft "Books": Some Addenda and Corrigenda'
in The Dark Brotherhood and other pieces (Sauk City, Wisconsin, Arkham House,
1966, pp. 134-152). Calmet's book has recently been republished in abridged form as
The Phantom World (Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 2001).
|
|
I believe one key to understanding Lovecraft's Necronomicon mythos can be found in
his 'History of the Necronomicon,' where he states that "a translation
made by Dr. Dee was never printed."2
|
2. August Derleth, Dark Brotherhood, p. 263.
|
|
John Dee (1527-1608), perhaps best known as Queen Elizabeth I's scientific advisor,
left an enormous literary output, much of which was never meant to be published.3
Dee assembled one of the most impressive
libraries of his time, many of his volumes being rescued from then-recently-defunct Catholic monasteries.
Even in his own time Dee had a reputation for being involved with sinister magical practices.
Indeed much of his library was kept secret and separate from his public library
because it was dangerous to possess such texts. Fortunately, many of the original volumes from Dee's
bibliotheca externa, as well as his secret occult library,
have been identified through the meticulous research of Julian Roberts and
Andrew Watson.4
This was largely possible because Dee usually left copious notes in
the margins of his books, including some very characteristic symbols.5
|
3. William H. Sherman, John Dee, The Politics of Reading and Writing in the
English Renaissance (Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1997, pp. 116-117).
4. Julian Roberts and Andrew Watson, John Dee's Library Catalogue (Oxford, 1992).
5. For example, a bracket shaped like a face used to indicate alchemical passages.
Dee also used a symbol described by Sherman as his 'ladder symbol'; this is seen in
the margins of a 13th century manuscript of Liber Iuratus (Sloane Mss. 313)
which identifies it as coming from Dee's secret library.
|
|
Dee apparently regarded the Necronomicon, or Ars Necronomica
('The art of controlling [spirits of] the dead') as an extension of Ars
Pyronomica ('the art of controlling the fire'). The latter is an obscure
alchemical process; in the terminology of spiritual alchemy it refers to
controlling one's astral body. Josten explains the latter in his introduction
to Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica:
|
"In another dark passage, which alludes to the philosophers' mercury
and its replacement by the Sun, i.e., gold, Dee asserts that this
operation (which is the final stage in the transmutation of metals)
can no longer be performed in the present age, as it was in the
past performed by some great experts, unless indeed one let the
work be governed by a certain soul which has been severed from
its body by the art of controlling the fire (ars pyronomica),
a work very difficult and fraught with dangers because of
the fiery and sulphurous fumes which it occasions [Ibid., f. 14v;
below, p. 165.]."6
|
6. C. H. Josten, A Translation of John Dee's
"Monas Hieroglyphica", Ambix, Vol. XII, 1964, p. 100-101.
|
|
The passage Josten refers to is from Dee's Theorem XIII:
|
"In our present age we cannot perform this,
unless we let this golden work be governed by a certain soul that
has been separated from [its] body by the art of controlling the
fire [ars pyronomica]. This work is difficult, and also very dangerous because
of the fiery and sulphurous fumes which it occasions; but surely
that soul will be able to work wonders, tying, no doubt, with
bonds that cannot be loosed, Venus and indeed Mars to the disk
of the Moon (or at least to that of Mercury), and producing --
in the third place (as they will have it) (to complete our septenary
number -- the Sun of the philosophers."7
|
7. Dee's preface to his Monas Hieroglyphica, in Josten op. cit., p. 165.
|
|
It is hard to imagine that Dee regarded ars necronomica any less
dangerous than ars pyronomica.
|
It is not know when or where Dee acquired a copy of the Necronomicon,
but it is probably the book he refers to in his Mysteriorum Libri
(or magical diaries) as "my Arabik boke." This would place it in his hands in
1583.8
This coincides with the probable date of his translation, since the manuscript
contains some notes in Edward Kelley's handwriting (folio 74r) which
refer to Singilla, a spirit who is only mentioned once in Dee's
Mysteriorum Libri, i.e. in an "action" dated Apr 18, 1583.9
The incomplete state of the translation can be explained simply by the
fact that the work was interrupted by the disappearance of the book.10
Edward Kelley's scribblings in Dee's manuscript.
|
8. On Dee's "Arabik boke", see Peterson,
John Dee's Five Books of Mysteries
(Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003, p. 15, 40, 353). It was prized by Pontois and described as having
"cost Doctor Dye £ 600 ready money as he the deponent did hear himself the said doctor afferm."
It somehow disappeared in 1583, and Dee asked the spirits for help in recovering it.
It was eventually recovered in 1595 "by gods favor."
9. Peterson, op. cit., p. 356.
It is also possible of course that Dee wrote the text much earlier,
and Kelley only picked a convenient blank spot between chapters to write.
10. It is also damaged in many places due to careless handling by successive owners,
including a maid who used pages under pies and tore out strips
to light fires and such. We know this because of the account
of how Ashmole came to possess Dee's stash of private occult
writings, which is bound with Sloane Mss 3188 in the British
Library.
|
|
It is this incomplete and fragmentary nature of Dee's manuscript which
gives us a clue to Lovecraft's sources.
While HPL consistently uses "Azathoth" to refer to a demon of chaos,
a comparison of the fuller Latin text of the
Necronomicon with Dee's manuscript shows
that there are actually two separate beings with similar-sounding
names ("Az" and "Aza-Thoth"). This is not at all apparent from
the Dee manuscript alone.
|
Latin manuscript of Necronomicon, ca. late 14th or early 15th century.
|
|
The Necronomicon, in a short section cataloging various demons,
clearly names Az as the "blind demon":
|
"The blind demon Az sits on the throne of Chaos. It is he
who swallows everything, and when in the end he finds the world
is nought, he eats himself.
Asto-vidad is the evil flyer who seizes the life; as it
says that, when his hand strokes a man it is lethargy, when he
casts it on the sick one it is fever, when he looks in his
eyes he drives away the life, and they call it death. The
demon of the malignant eye is he who will spoil anything which
men see, when they do not say 'in the name of Yog-Sothoth.'
....
With every one of them are many demons and fiends
cooperating, to specify whom a second time would be tedious;
demons, too, who are furies (rabei), are in great multitude it
is said. The demons of ruin, pain, and decrepitude, producers
of vexation and bile, revivers of grief, the progeny of gloom,
and bringers of stench, decay, and vileness, who are many,
very numerous, and very notorious; and a portion of all of
them is mingled in the bodies of men, and their
characteristics are glaring in mankind." - (Book 1, ch 28; pg
110 ff of Dee's Ms.)
|
|
Later, this demon is mentioned as a sole companion of the 'Evil
One' after other evil spirits have been conquered:
|
"Then two fiends (diaboli) remain at large, the Evil One and
Az." - (Book 1, ch 30; Dee Ms. pg 128.)
|
|
This being is wholly distinct from Aza-Thoth, who seems to be
some kind of legendary king and sorcerer who has both human and
demonic ancestry:
|
"Aza-Thoth was the son of Khrutasp, son of Zainigau, son of
Virafsang, ... son of Druiaskan, son of the Evil One." - (Book
1, ch 31; not found in Dee Ms.)
|
|
He currently lies bound but will eventually break free and lay
waste to the earth, as seen elsewhere in the Necronomicon:
|
"After the apostate shouts like this, and because of it,
Aza-Thoth stands up before him, but through fear of the
likeness of Fraidaun in the body of Fraidaun, he does not first
remove those fetters and stake from his trunk until the Evil
One removes them. And the vigor of Aza-Thoth increases, the
fetters being removed from his trunk, and his impetuosity
remains; he swallows down the apostate on the spot, [here Dee's
manuscript, pg. 233, breaks off] and rushing into the world to
perpetrate evil, he commits innumerable grievous sins; he
swallows down one-third of mankind, cattle, sheep, vegetation,
and commits grievous devastation." - (Book 4, ch 3.)
|
|
This person seems to be the same as 'Aza-Citra', because on the
next page of the Latin codex we read:
|
"And, afterwards, when the twelfth millennium comes, through
Hucedar-mah the creatures become more progressive, and he
utterly destroys Aza-Citra."
|
|
This also may provide a clue as to the meaning of his name, since
*Aza-Chithra can be translated 'Spawn of Az', if we assume
Middle Persian loan words in Alhazred's (lost) Arabic original.
|
|
Finally, there's another interesting allusion to Aza-Thoth in a
passage which Alhazred uncharacteristically wrote in the first
person (the Medieval Latin seems to be a little faulty here too):
|
"When I issued from the sweat, and raised my eyes, I saw
the world when it was dark as night; on the whole earth were
snakes, scorpions, lizards (stelliones), and noxious creatures
of many kinds; and so the other kinds of quadrupeds stood
among the reptiles; every approach of the whole earth was as
though not as much as a needle's point remained, in which
there was no rush of noxious creatures. There was the coming
of a planetary star (?) into planetary conjunction, and the
moon and planets in fours and fives; many dark forms with the
face and curls of Aza-Thoth suffered punishment in company
with certain aliens; and I was amazed at calling the wicked
out. Lastly, he (the Evil One) came up to the fire, and
mingled darkness and smoke with it." - (Book 2, ch 2; pg 162
of Dee's Ms.)
|
|
I believe this is strong evidence that HPL did not have access
to the fuller text as preserved in the Latin edition, and most
likely had only seen Dee's manuscript.
|
